trees

The tree surgeon paused out in front of our house for a long time. Too long.

He’d been called to do a “health assessment” on our two large trees.
The one in the front is a behemoth. Big-boned, magnificent in her splendor, she’s an almost two-hundred-year-old ash tree we call Grandmother. She’s a legend in our neighborhood. Cars stop and stare. People visit her on purpose. Once, when I was watering, a man took out a tiny flute and played a song he’d written just for her. I swear to god.

The one you’re looking at now is Mother.

Mother is a Chinese elm that was planted so close to the house I cannot squeeze between them without losing a boob. But that was over eighty years ago and we’ve appreciated the shade she so generously provides our courtyard, that although advised otherwise, we’ve ignored any suggestion that she’s compromised the foundation.

Anyway, one of Mother’s roots had started to crack and lift the tile and seemed to be headed toward the house, prompting concern.

I talked with her. Everyday. “Don’t do this,” I warned, “Don’t force us to make a decision like this.”

Just to be clear, I know my role. I am just the latest custodian of these beauties. There have been several before me, and there will be more when I leave. “I know, I got a little house with my trees,” is what I tell anyone who visits us after they close their mouths.

The surgeon’s mouth wasn’t agape, he was too cool for such an overt display of awe, I mean, caring for trees is his job.
But you could see it in his eyes as he stepped back, taking in Grandmother’s canopy. He was impressed.

“She’s a beauty,” he finally said. “And she’s so happy!”

Raphael’s face broke into a broad grin, I exhale for the first time in months.
You see, California has been suffering through a sustained drought and I’ve been so worried about our trees and all the stress they’ve been under. If anything happened to Grandmother I’d just die, but not before we were run out of town by an angry mob led by a dude with a flute.

“Seriously, are they okay?” I asked.

I really wanted to know. Or did I?

If he came back with a grim diagnosis, what would we do? Cut them down? Cut them down? CUT THEM DOWN?!!!  See, I cannot even write the words. What kind of a sick Sophie’s choice was the universe handing us? Kill the tree to save the house? It was unthinkable!

“I’m not cutting this tree down!” I announced defiantly. My arms were wrapped around Mother as far as they could reach as our tree surgeon inspected the cracked tiles.
“Oh god no!” he responded in shock. I just about died of happiness. “It’s an easy fix,” he said and then went on to explain in  tree-surgeony speak, what sounded like a very complex series of steps we had to take to keep everybody alive and well.

“She hugs these trees,” Raphael told him as he wrapped up his visit.
“See, I told you. You’re gonna be okay,” I assured Mother while caressing her bark.
“And she talks to them too.” He was making that she’s so crazy face he makes when I do stuff like that in front of strangers.

“So do I,” the surgeon admitted. Of course he did.
I wanted to tell him I loved him, instead, I told him he had a good face. He took it well.

Carry on,
xox J

                                                                                          GRANDMOTHER

Even if you don’t believe in God, you have to admit that intelligent design had something to do with this little experiment we call planet earth, I certainly do!  We celebrated Earth Day the other day and at the risk of getting all preachy on you:

1. Every day is and should be Earth day!
2. A few months ago, a friend sent me this article about trees. Not only do they breathe, they have a pulse, a heartbeat so to speak, every two hours!

https://articles.spiritsciencecentral.com/3-unbelievable-facts-trees/     

The health of Mother Nature and Earth is critical to our survival as a species and if you don’t believe that—go hug a redwood, or swim with dolphins, or simply sit on a porch and watch a late afternoon electrical storm roll in…

Okay. I’m done. Keep breathing everybody.

Carry on,
xox

I call this, brother hugging tree

I don’t just appreciate this quality from my foliage, it is a quality I like in my friends too.

I like a friend who, even if you haven’t seen them in a while you don’t have that awkward “catching up” phase.

I like friends who require very little eggshell walking.

I like friends you’ve had long enough, and that you know well enough that you can order their drink to be waiting for them before they arrive at the table.

And like the tree I have in my front yard, I like to just begin where we left off.

No idle chit chat.

No shallow small talk.

Not with my friends, we like to jump right into the deep end.

Exactly like I do with you guys.

Carry on,
xox

#Ilovemytribe

After reading my post the other day about our majestic ash tree,
http://www.theobserversvoice.com/2016/05/earthquakes-rings-and-singing-ash-trees/
many of you asked me to reprise this essay about that very same tree—and his pal JAWT—who we murdered.
And just so you know, a year later finds Ash thriving as is our garden with all of the newly available sunshine (my bougainvillea has never looked more beautiful).
Yet…RIP, ‘Just A Weed Tree’, know that you are missed.
Carry on,
xox

We are all connected.
And not just by the proximity and outreach that is available to us via our devices.

It goes way beyond that.

I believe that everything is alive and has a spirit.

There is another web active in our lives besides that World Wide one. It is a web of life, of energy that connects everything and everyone on this earth.

We are all interconnected and anything that suggests the belief that we are separate is an illusion.

Nature is the supreme example of this web of interconnection. The bees need the flowers. The flowers need the bees to bloom.

And I fucked up and cut down a tree in our front yard, apparently upsetting the delicate balance of nature throughout the world, or at least Los Angeles, California.

We are the custodians of a one hundred and fifty-year-old ash tree. And he is our giant, grounded guardian.

Of that I am sure.

I remember a psychic predicting that I would live in a tree house one day, (which at the time seemed absurd), but when I purchased this house a few years later my friends all remarked “I see you got a little house with your tree.”

It is massive, one of the largest trees in Studio City and we are so blessed to live under its majestic canopy, feeling its energy, enjoying its shade.

On the curb, just adjacent to Ash (we’ll call him Ash) was a nondescript tree-thingy.
The arborist that came to the house ten years ago during our remodel educated us, telling us all about Ash, and when asked he informed me that the other tree wasn’t any species that he was familiar with.

“It’s just a weed that someone let grow into a tree a long time ago” he told us.

Just A Weed Tree was a lot of trouble.
His canopy was dense and…ugly, even after the annual haircut we gave him, not light and airy like Ash’s.
He cast too much shade for anything to flourish and the birds loved to congregate inside that dense, dark green foliage and shit all over our cars.

He had the bad attitude of an overgrown weed. He was pushy. And greedy, lifting the sidewalk, and getting into our pipes on a regular basis.

Just A Weed Tree always appeared to be crowding Ash, vying for light; and in the severe drought that we’ve found ourselves under, I feared he was chugalugging at the water table—and I knew Ash was too polite to say anything.

I LOVE trees, I do, ask anyone. I absolutely adore Ash, but I was not fond of JAWT.
He wasn’t a tree. He was a garden variety pest.

So this past Saturday our gardener cut him down. It took two guys and they were fast and thorough, even grinding the stump.

We both forgot that it was happening that day so when we got home the whole look and energy of the front yard had changed dramatically.

There was no sign that Just A Weed Tree had ever been there. But you could feel a HUGE void.
That weed had a presence.

FUCK.

We both stood at the curb, “Wow” was all we could say.

Now you could really see the front our house, there was the added sunlight in our yard that I had craved (for the plants) and with JAWT gone you could fully grasp the wonder of Ash.

“It looks like they trimmed the big tree too,” my husband remarked as I went around picking up leaves still on their branches.
It appeared as if they had been cleanly cut and they were EVERYWHERE.

Except they hadn’t been cut. They had been dropped.
I’d never seen anything like it. They covered the entire front yard, the driveway and even parts of the roof. In the fall, Ash drops single, dead, brown leaves, never bright green leaves still on their small branches.
What was up?

My arms were full, carrying the leaves to piles I had made on the driveway
And it suddenly occurred to me: Ash was showing his shock and disapproval at the death of his friend Just A Weed Tree.

I walked over to him, closed my eyes and rested my hand on the rough bark of his truck—and I could feel his stress and despair.

Oh Fuck.

First of all, I had always felt Ash was a female. Wrong. He has a very pronounced masculine energy.
And he was pissed. And under extreme stress.
Apparently the high pitched whine of a chainsaw has the same visceral effect on trees as a dental drill has on humans (yeah, okay, got it) plus he had known JAWT for over sixty years since he was just a tiny little weed that had somehow been spared. They were buddies.

I could feel his despair and it felt awful. I should have known better. Trees do have feelings and I had callously overlooked that fact.

We had basically murdered his friend right in front of him.

FUCK.

We are all interconnected, residents of this web of life and I needed Ash to know that I could feel his anguish, so I stood with both hands and my forehead on his trunk, apologizing and conveying our sincerest condolences for the loss of JAWT. I also explained the water situation and the fact that his health and stability were of the utmost importance to us. Then I played to his vanity telling him over and over how gorgeous (handsome) we think he is.
“You Mister, are the star of this neighborhood.” I think he was flattered.

Raphael watched from a distance, he could sense what was going on, and he added his sympathies from there. “I hope he’ll be okay,” he said with genuine concern, gazing at the piles of leaves.

“Now that he understands and knows how sorry we are—he’ll be fine.” I replied.

And he is. After our little talk…he never dropped another leaf.

Carry on,
xox

We are all connected.
And not just by the proximity and outreach that is available to us via our devices.

It goes way beyond that.

I believe that everything is alive and has a spirit.

There is another web active in our lives besides that World Wide one. It is a web of life, of energy that connects everything and everyone on this earth.

We are all interconnected and anything that suggests the belief that we are separate is an illusion.

Nature is the supreme example of this web of interconnection. The bees need the flowers. The flowers need the bees to bloom.

And I fucked up and cut down a tree in our front yard, apparently upsetting the delicate balance of nature throughout the world, or at least Los Angeles, California.

We are the custodians of a one hundred and fifty year old ash tree. And he is our giant, grounded guardian.

Of that I am sure.

I remember a psychic predicting that I would live in a tree house one day, (which at the time seemed absurd), but when I purchased this house a few years later my friends all remarked “I see you got a little house with your tree.”

It is massive, one of the largest trees in Studio City and we are so blessed to live under its majestic canopy, feeling its energy, enjoying its shade.

On the curb just adjacent to Ash (we’ll call him Ash) was a nondescript tree-thingy.
The arborist that came to the house ten years ago during our remodel educated us, telling us all about Ash, and when asked he informed me that the other tree wasn’t any species that he was familiar with.

“It’s just a weed that someone let grow into a tree a long time ago” he told us.

Just A Weed Tree was a lot of trouble.
His canopy was dense and…ugly, even after the annual hair cuts we gave him, not light and airy like Ash’s.
He cast too much shade for anything to flourish and the birds loved to congregate inside that dense, dark green foliage and shit all over our cars.

He had the bad attitude of an overgrown weed. He was pushy. And greedy, lifting the sidewalk, and getting into our pipes on a regular basis.

Just A Weed Tree always appeared to be crowding Ash, vying for light; and in the severe drought that we’ve found ourselves under, I feared he was chugalugging at the water table—and I knew Ash was too polite to say anything.

I LOVE trees, I do, ask anyone. I absolutely adore Ash, but I was not fond of JAWT.
He wasn’t a tree. He was a garden variety pest.

So this past Saturday our gardener cut him down. It took two guys and they were fast and thorough, even grinding the stump.

We both forgot that it was happening that day so when we got home the whole look and energy of the front yard had changed dramatically.

There was no sign that Just A Weed Tree had ever been there. But you could feel a HUGE void.
That weed had a presence.

FUCK.

We both stood at the curb, “Wow” was all we could say.

Now you could really see the front our house, there was the added sunlight in our yard that I had craved (for the plants) and with JAWT gone you could fully grasp the wonder of Ash.

“It looks like they trimmed the big tree too,” my husband remarked as I went around picking up leaves still on their branches.
It appeared as if they had been cleanly cut and they were EVERYWHERE.

Except they hadn’t been cut. They had been dropped.
I’d never seen anything like it. They covered the entire front yard, the driveway and even parts of the roof. In the fall Ash drops single, dead, brown leaves, never bright green leaves still on their small branches.
What was up?

My arms were full, carrying the leaves to piles I had made on the driveway
And it suddenly occurred to me: Ash was showing his shock and disapproval at the death of his friend Just A Weed Tree.

I walked over to him, closed my eyes and rested my hand on the rough bark of his truck—and I could feel his stress and despair.

Oh Fuck.

First of all, I had always felt Ash was a female. Wrong. He has a very pronounced masculine energy.
And he was pissed. And under extreme stress.
Apparently the high pitched whine of a chain-saw has the same visceral effect on trees as a dental drill has on humans (yeah, okay, got it) plus he had known JAWT for over sixty years, since he was just a tiny little weed that had somehow been spared. They were buddies.

I could feel his despair and it felt awful. I should have known better. Trees do have feelings and I had callously overlooked that fact.

We had basically murdered his friend right in front of him.

FUCK.

We are all interconnected, residents of this web of life and I needed Ash to know that I could feel his anguish, so I stood with both hands and my forehead on his trunk, apologizing and conveying our sincerest condolences for the loss of JAWT. I also explained the water situation and the fact that his health and stability were of the utmost importance to us. Then I played to his vanity telling him over and over how gorgeous (handsome) we think he is.
“You Mister, are the star of this neighborhood.” I think he was flattered.

Raphael watched from a distance, he could sense what was going on, and he added his sympathies from there. “I hope he’ll be okay,” he said with genuine concern, gazing at the piles of leaves.

“Now that he understands and knows how sorry we are—he’ll be fine.” I replied.

And he is. After our little talk he never dropped another leaf.

Carry on,
xox